All this talk of EarthDawn (which I will always count as the game of my heart) got me thinking.

A dangerous pastime, I know.

Before I go any further on this sure-to-be-rambling discussion, I want to make the following three points very clear.

*1* I do not advocate the playing of PC Immortal Elves. Immoral Elves, on the other hand, suit me just fine.

*2* I do not think IE's should be granted some sort of cosmic power by virtue of their age, but I do think they have a resourcefulness that defies human conception.

*3* I liked Worlds without End, and anyone who has yet to read Scars from Per Aspera Press really should.

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IEs as PCs

Probably a bad idea, but people bring it up, so why not discuss it a little. If you *had* to make a playable rules-set for IEs that kept them "uber-kewl" but still did something resembling game balance, what would you do? I, myself, would...

CharGen
* 100 BPs buys you Immortal Elf as Metatype with one century of lifespan.

* Every additional 50 BPs spent on Metatype prolongs your (previously used up) Lifespan by 100 years.

* IEs have the same basic Attributes as regular Elves, but have all Augmented Attribute Maximums raised by 1 per Century of Lifespan. Furthermore they have +1 to their Max Edge per Century.

* Immortal Elves may buy Initiation at Chargen for 20BP*Grade. Like all things, you have to buy Grades sequentially.

* Immortal Elves have access to the Metamagic: Pattern Strengthening (which allows them to cast progressive low-grade Increase Attribute spells upon themselves with a Permanent Duration, but each such Spell (and they must be stacked in layers with a single attribute Point differential) must be tied to a Pattern Object which, if destroyed, will unweave the Attribute chain from that point up.

Example: Ehran's Logic 12 is tied to his lucky copy of the Book of Mormon. His actual Augmented Logic is 16, but if someone managed to destroy the Book of Mormon (and woe betide that poor soul- Ehran has it autographed by Joseph Smith _and_ Donny Osmond!) Ehran will be reduced to a Logic of 11 until he restores that link in his Logic Pattern chain.

Each Pattern Object must be Bonded as a Pattern Focus with a Rating equal to the Force of the Increase Attribute Spell x5. Pattern Strengthening takes (Force) Weeks (8 hours/day) to complete, during which time the user must abstain from all uses of Sorcery Skills.

Example: Poor Ehran, bereft of his precious BoM, must now rebuild a new Pattern Item to house the awesomeness of his Force 6 Increase Attribute effect. Luckily he lives forever, so going into seclusion and spending 6 weeks of 8 hour days forging that Pattern Item, and 30 Karma bonding it, is no big deal. Unfortunately his dastardly rival, Harlequin, who happens to have the Special Ability: Know Everything, takes this opportunity to molest Ehran's priceless collection of Victorian Tea Spoons. But Ehran is not without recourse- he's still a formidable swordsman and, in a pinch, his Conjuring skills are not bound up in the forging of the Pattern Item as his Sorcery Skills are... his Force 86 Dragon Slaying Spirit of Freaking Hot Fire is on stand-by, waiting to eat clown paste.

* Immortal Elves have the Immune to Aging Positive Quality (erm, does what it sounds like) for free, and are the only Metatype that may take it. Contrary to popular belief, Immortal Dwarves, if they exist, are funky inheritors of funkier magic. Icweing only gave Valrulus enough of that mojo juice for three doses, and them's all used up. Plus their "Immortality" was really suspiciously similar to Longevity. A few hundred years doth not an Immortal make. Furthermore, Immortal Elves gain the Immunity to Pathogens and Immunity to Poisons Positive Qualities.

* For every Century of Lifespan, an IE can designate one Skill (but not Skill Group) an area of Expertise. Such a Skill gains a Maximum Rating equal to the IE's Augmented Linked Attribute, but in the event of the Attribute failing (see Pattern Strengthening, above) the Skill is immediately reduced to a Rating equal to the acting Attribute Rating until that Rating is restored. If Leonardo's Logic drops from 26 to 11, some of the things his Computer 26 Skill could do are not going to make sense to his newly befuddled Logic 11. Note that the Skill Max Rating increases, not the Skill Rating. More Karma! All you have is time and experience anyways, pointy-ear!

* For something different, in a game with a really long time scale (such as a game designed for IEs) a character may begin play with an IE who is not yet over the first Century mark. Such a character follows all of the above rules- he/she simply doesn't gain any of the perks for being over Muchly-Experienced (living x-many Centuries) until that much time passes. BP cost for a not-yet-100 IE is equal to the IE's current Age or 50, whichever is greater.

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That's all I have for now. I'm sure there's more going on in my head though...

[EDIT: Fixed some formatting for ease of reading/skimming/ignoring]
[EDIT2: Added Skill information]
[EDIT3: Added baby IE stuff () and additional Immunities (Pathogens and Poisons)]

Sorry dude, i just would'nt make it up in my game "IE's".
1st the player would have to know a whack load of history in ED and SR and the player would have to be a vetran of all systems 1-4 and ED what ever how many editions their are.

ED has 2 and a half editions, actually... the half is a clarification of the First, really.

And an Immortal Elf would, of course, require a great deal of history. An incredible amount of history, but he need not have come from the Fourth World as a rule. Immortal Elves can, although only do so rarely, pass that genetic trait on to their offspring, and while their powers during the Fifth World were meager at best, they could have birthed a troublesome immortal Elf-baby during the Baby Boom, or whenever else they felt the need to get it on.

Again, I don't think they have any place as PCs in an average game, but I thought, if nothing else, it would be nice to see some mechanics for them that don't read like this...

Ehran the Scribe
Attributes: Aw, who cares? He can do whatever he wants anyway.
Skills: All, at whatever rating is best suited to kicking your players' asses.
Magic: You kidding?

Because that's the way the IEs have been treated in the past. Now 4th Ed sets a very bold standard by downsizing the inherent RRRRARGH! of Great Dragons, so maybe they will similarly unveil new and disproved IE stats... but I want something to look at and say, "Ok, these guys are tough, that's true... but I think that they have weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and flaws that have both thematic and mechanical construction to them."

Note that I don't completely agree with the de-RRRRARGHing of the GDs. But I can roll with the punches.

Ohhh. Skills. Going to edit again.

Dud you are right, Some EI's could of been birthed in the 1980's or in 2070 but they would not know that yet because of a already long life span.

Exactly.

I think if you want to play a normal aged Elf who will, after he stops getting older, figure out his heritage (say someone born in the 2050s that wouldn't ID as Immortal till well outside of the span of any normal campaign) that might be a 50 point Metatype... since you'll have to wait for your game to progress across Century marks to start getting any of teh major juju listed above.

oh now we are going to have a game that bridges across the centuries?

I have a hard enough time keeping with the current time line.

if i was going to run a IE it would have to be a specific scenario/game designed for the IE.

I am playing an IE with the Amnesia flaw. He doesn't know he's an IE.

Also, IE's also possess the Immunity to Pathogens and Immunity to Poisons positive traits.

Speaking of Immortals, hehe. Anyone going to translate that SR3 Highlander conversion over from TSS, or will I have to do it? >_>

I think the IE/Amnesia combo is classic, really, for exactly the reasons Grinder is winking about.

Having all of the enemies and connections of an IE without any of the more tangible benefits... so sad.

The GDs are hunting you down, if only you could remember where you left your Force 900 Power Focus...

*sigh*

Should IEs have the Sensitive System Negative Quality built-in?

Actually, he doesn't have any of the connections, either. He just woke up in the woods 20 years ago with a splitting headache and wandered into a smuggler's camp half-dead from dehydration and exposure. Considering he has Body 1, that isn't too surprising (he's a Rigger Adept), where the elven chick who eventually became his wife nursed him back to health. He the reNamed himself, not knowing doing so would set him back all those years of effort improving his magic.

In the first (and so far only, as this is a Play-by-post game) run, he's been followed by a mysterious black car, and had a few strange comments made by an unkown person in a robe and by the Dweller on the Threshold during his Astral Quest ordeal for his first initiation (he's a Totem Way adept- his totem can drag him to the metaplanes for an Astral Quest ordeal (and only for an ordeal).

Well doing the rules for young (6th world) immortal elves shouldn't be that hard to do

It's just doing rules for the 4th world megapowerful IE's that would be near impossible

How much do you have to pay for being truly ageless (=immortal) then?

you could always just say he is immortal and leave it at that. if a gm lets this go on then more power to you. who is to say that your elf is immortal or not, it is all in the roleplay. would be great for conversations

elf: i am IMMORTAL!!!

merc: sure, so am i buddy... but i got a bigger gun.

i think you're not getting the cost for age.

it's not talking about how old they can live to be. they're immortal, they can live indefinitely (barring a horribly unpleasant painful artificially caused death, of course... which, since they won't die of natural causes, is pretty much what they all have to look forward to, eventually, anyways).

the 100 years is how long they *have* lived. the longer they live, the stronger they get (apparently), and therefore it costs more BPs to be an older IE.

for example, an IE from the 4th age has lived a really really really long time. i have no idea exactly how long, but i'm going to guess at least more than 5,000 years (and heck, for all i know, it's 100,000 years).

at this point, it costs them so much BP to raise their attributes, they can pretty much just raise them as fast as they are able... they still won't be able to keep up with their potential mind you.

or, of course, you could just do it the old way. which is: IE wins, you don't even get to roll. yeah, that's real fun.

Magic is about the only thing in SR that's limitless for PCs.

it can be figured out just remember that a 6th world IE is going to be Young now and just learning---out side of paying extra BP's for a Spike Baby IE (born in the 1960's?)--they aren't going to be too old yet~as for the 4th world IE'sWELL if the ice age ended about 8,500 B.C. and earthdawn was sometime between 10,000 B.C. & 8,500 B.C. [I think] well THEN aina harlequin erhan & alaicia are pretty Damm Old!!! a 4TH WORLD IE is either a NPC FROM HELL or a EPIC LEVEL CARACTER
how many BP's world a 4th world IE NEED to go ~1000 to 1200?~ but hay if you want to do that go ahead I don't mind if you like it

AND then we could go even farther from there-any chance for Densairais's Immortal human experiments in Earthdawn bearing any fruit? I thought that was what the BlackLodge started from---and could any Barsaivian Darwves be in Hypersleep from the 4th world?
Maybe ALL THE BASE LINE METATYPES have to reestablish their own languages in the 6th world before the OTHER METATYPES AT LEAST OFFICALLY come back
Sleeping Dwarves bring back Dwarvic
So then where would the Trolls' Language(Trollish) come back from?

Ok now we can rap this up real quick with a few questions

1: what would be the build points for a young IE(born in the 6th world )
2: what would be the build points for a Spike Baby IE [born in the 150 years before the Awakening?]
3what would be the build points for a 4th world IE(Earthdawn IE)

Also is there an agreed upon time for the end of the 4th World and the start of the 5th World?

Just wondering

Assuming that the mana rises and falls somewhat regularly like a tide, it could be plotted like a wave. 2011 is an x axis vertex. In ED 2nd ed Throal seals itself in 1050TH and reemerges in 1412TH. It could reasonably be assumed that the worst of the scourge lasted 362 years. 1150 years pass between the discovery of the Books of Harrow and the sealing of Throal, though at this all the races are already in evidence. 150 years after the discovery of the books Wraiths appear around 1000 years before the sealing of Throal. 1331 years from the discovery of the books until the peak of the Scourge. There are at least 2-3 generations of elves prior to the discovery maybe more, 1000+ years. Also keep in mind that Throal vanished before recorded history in the 5th world, around 9000 years since the beginning of recorded history and the Awakening. There may be some overlap between the technical end of the 4th age and the beginning of recorded history, if there isn't then an age is about 9000-10000 years. So 7989-6989 BCE is the end of the 4th world. Sound about right?

OK that could all be complete drek too.

going by Erhan's cycle of magic that is around the right time

now we just need the 3 Type's of PC IE Rules

http://www.pvv.org/~leirbakk/rpg/shadowrun...hranspeech.html

The Fourth World ended in 3113 BC, according to Ehran the Scribe.

as far as BPs needed to be an elf of the appropriate age, that's quite easily calculated by simply looking at the first post, which explicitly states the costs.

they are, respectively, ~50 BP, ~200 BP, and over 5200 BP respectively.

plus costs of boosting attributes (although in the 50 BP version, those would be more or less standard costs)

Nice history datasoft, steve!

Which Ironically is the period where legends of magical kings and fearies and wizards and all that fun fantasy stuff is usually timed.

::Edit:: in my game, I've come to the conclusion that adept powers are uneffected by the manacycle. My justification for this comes both from legend and the fact that background count doens't effect adepts. The ability to cast spells and the freqency of magical talent manifesting is effected, meaning that downcycle has horribly difficult spellcasting, and few births of magically active individuals. But when an adept is born, he's relatively a powerhouse, since there is little competition and he is the only one with magically boosted abilities. People like King Arthur and Charlemagne were adepts. There were wizards in those days too, but their spells were massively draining, so they rarely, if ever, used them. Merlin doesn't toss spells about willy nilly, he saves tehm for those very important moments, and does indeed risk death when casts them. Since Foci work also still work in a mana poor enviornment, they were increasingly important (Reference Excalbur, Joyeaux, Lance of Longinus, holy grail) as were the various centering tecniques for resisting drain.

So even in the downcycle, magic was still possible, just hard, and various sorts of magic were in many ways uneffected by the low mana levels due to their low use of mana to begin with. Many legends taht occured during the dowcycle may have more truth to them than one would suspect. ::edit::

Smiling Bandit
Strikes Again/HAHAHA

I never really bought into the whole idea of immortal elves being superhumanly tough, just because they are old. Getting good at a skill takes serious dedication, and being one of the best at it takes continually using that skill. All of you folks who took something in college, then went several years without ever using that knowledge in the real world - how much of that class do you still remember? UFC fighters train intensely for 2-3 months prior to their bouts. If a UFC fighter was tossed into that mix with just a day's warning, how do you think he would do against the other fighters?

If I lived to be 1,000 years old, would I be able to take a karate champion in a fight? I might not ever even learn martial arts at all. And I might become a grand master, then give it up, and 100 years later barely remember any at all. I'm sure an immortal elf would have superior physical stats, maxed-out mental stats, and a very wide range of skills, in addition to a very high Magic Attribute. They would have centuries of tactical experience and probably know a few magical tricks that no one else has even heard of yet.

But they should not be invincible. That's a cop-out. Actually, if it comes down to an immortal elf facing off against a group of runners, you've probably already messed up. An immortal elf should work subtly and always have backup, a contingency plan or two, and several escape routes. They shouldn't be able to mop the floor with a group of professional violent criminals, but they shouldn't have to, either.

Echo that, Glyph. Every word, 100%.

I'd agree more than 100% but I'm only a 33-year-old immortal elf and can't default to my Omnipotence attribute yet.

Is Bad-Assery a complimentry skill for the Omnipotence Attribute?

thanks guys, now my wife is trying to make 'bad-assery' a new quality.

the one thing is glyph, when you have skills at a level, even 5 minutes a day is enough to keep it up to par.